


Inside Down and Upside Out

by noblydonedonnanoble



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Crossover, Episode: s02e13 The Trouble With Tribbles, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-07-12 08:28:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7094296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noblydonedonnanoble/pseuds/noblydonedonnanoble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The TARDIS malfunctions and brings the Doctor and Donna into the universe of the Starship Enterprise. They intend to leave as soon as possible, but as always, their plan goes awry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Unexpected Detour

                The Doctor has stopped in his tracks only a few feet outside of the TARDIS, and it's so sudden that Donna actually bumps into him. As soon as she takes a look around, though, she understands his evident confusion. "Doctor, what happened to the beach?"

                "I…" He spins around and examines their surroundings. "What?"

                "You said we could go to the beach."

                He rubs the back of his neck uncomfortably. He doesn't speak, just keeps looking around. At the very non-beach-like spaceship which they seem to have accidentally boarded. "I might have said something along those lines, yes."

                "And instead you brought me onto a spaceship. Don't you think we see enough of spaceships?"

                "Donna." She waits with raised eyebrows for him to continue, which he doesn't for quite a few moments. "I… give me a moment." The Doctor pulls the sonic screwdriver from his pocket and points it at a wall, frowning slightly.

                "Give you a moment? To do what, take a tour?" She follows close behind as the Doctor puts a hand against the wall and begins to walk along it, screwdriver sonicing the whole way.

                The Doctor stops and for the second time, Donna crashes against him. She's about to ask him what he's playing at, but before she can, he's speaking again. "Donna, how often do we come across something with which I am entirely unfamiliar?"

                "Is that a trick question?"

                He gives her a look before aiming his screwdriver at the wall again. A panel opens directly in front of them, revealing an assortment of wires and machinery that all looks immensely complicated from where Donna stands. The Doctor pulls out his glasses—Donna rolls her eyes—and he slips them on, peering at it all in bewilderment. "I've never seen technology remotely like this. I couldn't tell you its origins, I couldn't fathom a guess at which _century_ we're in."

                "You're actually admitting to ignorance?"

                "Well…"

                The Doctor looks away from the bizarre technology, turning his gaze toward Donna. The expression on his face—a combination of eagerness, curiosity, a particular gleam in his eye—makes her scowl. "You're just confessing because you'd like to stick around a while longer, aren't you, Doctor?"

                Instead of responding, his eyes drift back to the panel. She lets out an exasperated sigh. "I'm just going to pop back into the TARDIS and change into something more bizarre-futuristic-spaceship appropriate."

                "Don't wander off!" he calls after her.

                But Donna doesn't make it far. She is, in fact, only a few yards away when a door to her right opens, making her jump. Three men emerge, all of them walking with quite a determined air. The man in the middle is wearing a yellow shirt, and the two flanking him are both wearing blue.

                 The sight of Donna and the Doctor seems to be as startling to these men as the arrival on the spaceship was for the Doctor and Donna. One of the men in blue zeroes in on the TARDIS, and takes a few hesitant steps in its direction. Meanwhile, the other two men approach Donna.

                "Who are you, and how did you get onto my ship?"

                Donna stammers over an explanation, but the Doctor thankfully hears the question and runs to her aid. By the time he reaches her, he's pulled out his psychic paper and he holds it up for the apparent captain to examine. "Hello! We're new recruits, only just arrived. This is Donna Noble, I'm the Doctor."

                "Doctor?" The man still standing beside the captain scowls. "Don't know why Starfleet thought it necessary to send you, because _I'm_ the lead doctor on this ship."

                Something seems to snap into place in the Doctor's mind, and Donna wishes that she could ask him to explain to her what's happening, but she knows that won't be a possibility for some time yet. "Oh, you misunderstand me, Doctor…"

                "McCoy."

                "Doctor McCoy. It's not that I'm the doctor; I'm the _Doctor_. It's my name."

                "That still doesn't explain why they sent a superfluous medical officer I didn't request."

                The Doctor glances at Donna, straining for the most plausible response. "Well, they thought that due to the size of your crew, another officer would be… prudent."

                Although this Doctor McCoy is evidently eager to continue arguing, the man standing beside the TARDIS interrupts. "Captain, I'm getting a very strange energy reading from this…" He squints up at the top. "Police box."

                "Oh, I belong to that police box," the Doctor says with a smile. "And I would rather you not go too near. It's quite fragile."

                "But why is it here?" the captain asks.

                Out of elaborate explanations, the Doctor shrugs and says, "Decoration for my quarters. Which…" He glances around them. "Where would those be, by the way? We were told that we'd find them on this level. Or at least I think it was this level. It's possible that we've gotten quite lost."

                "Yes, I'm afraid you have. The living quarters are two levels down. Perhaps Spock can help you find an empty room…"

                Donna's eyes widen. "Rooms. Empty _rooms_."

                "Oh, I'm sorry, I just assumed…" Donna vehemently shakes her head. "Well, rooms, then. Spock?"

                Before Spock can follow the instructions of the captain, the Doctor rushes to say, “No need. Two levels down, you said? I think we can probably manage from here.”

                “If you’re sure…”

                “Certainly, yeah. We’ll manage. Thank you for your help, Captain…”

                “Kirk. Jim Kirk.” He directs a winning smile Donna’s way and she flushes slightly.

                The Doctor glances at his flustered companion and frowns, but he quickly collects himself. “Yes, right, Captain Kirk. Thank you, but we’ll find our way, I think.”

                “Alright. Well, I hope you both find the Enterprise to your liking.”

                “I’m sure we will.”

                As soon as the three crewmembers have disappeared around a corner, the Doctor raises his eyebrows at Donna. “He must be preoccupied. There’s no way the captain of a ship would ask so few questions. We’re not even in uniform yet.”

                “Yet?” Donna asks as the Doctor pushes the door to the TARDIS open. He doesn’t respond, just strolls into the console room, and she trails after him desperately. “Doctor, you’re not seriously thinking of staying.”

                “I think we might have to, for a little bit at least. Close the door behind you, I don’t want anyone wandering in.”

                She huffs loudly but obeys his instruction anyway, following in his wake as he races toward his wardrobe. He’s muttering to himself. It’s never a good sign when he mutters to himself. She talks over him as well as she can manage without sounding angry. Because she’s not angry, really, she just doesn’t understand. “We’re standing in your time-traveling spaceship. If the humming and groaning is anything to go by, it’s working fine, so I don’t understand why we can’t just leave. And go to the beach,” she adds before she can help herself.

                The Doctor opens the wardrobe and begins scrambling through it. He doesn’t even bother to look back at her. “Because I’m worried that she’s sick. We’re not in our universe anymore and I need to make sure that it’s nothing serious before we try to go home. What I don’t understand is how she’s still working, where she’s drawing energy from…”

                “Not in our—” Donna stops mid-sentence when the Doctor flings a ball of fabric over his shoulder and she has to scramble to catch it. She unfurls it to see that he’s presented her with a relatively plain red dress. The only noteworthy ornamentation is a small insignia at the top that resembles the one she noticed on the crewmen’s shirts. “What the hell is this?”

                “Your uniform.”

                “Doctor, we’ve talked about this. When you shift gears like this you need to assume that I no longer understand a single word coming out of your mouth.”

                 He finally pauses, turning around to look at her at last. He lets out a low sigh. “Right, sorry. Have you ever seen _Star Trek_? The American television series from the 1960s.”

                “No. Gramps is always trying to get me to watch it but I never have.”

                “I think somehow we’ve ended up there.”

                When she hasn’t replied almost ten seconds later, he squints at her. “In the universe of the television series. I’ve never heard of it happening, but it’s certainly within the realm of possibility.”

                “You think we’re in a television series?” Donna nearly expects him to laugh and admit that he’s making it up.

                “ _Well_ , it’s probably a bit more complicated than that, but essentially, yes. It’ll take me a few days to sort out exactly what happened.”

                She takes a deep breath. Not making it up, then. “And we have to stick around in the meantime?”

                “I’m afraid so.” The Doctor returns his attention to the wardrobe and moments later, he pulls out another uniform. “We’ll get to the beach, though, I promise. As soon as I make sure the old girl’s alright. Now let’s get changed.”

                Ten minutes later, they have changed their clothes and he has maneuvered the TARDIS down two levels. She’s smart enough to navigate them to empty living quarters, which Donna immediately claims. “You can find your own,” she tells him with a smile.

                “No, that’s alright, I’ll just stay in the TARDIS.”

                “Right, of course.” Donna begins to pace the length of the room. She catches sight of herself in a mirror in one corner of the room and she stops to scrutinize her outfit. “You don’t think this dress is too revealing, do you?”

                “Hmm?” The Doctor has already opened up the electrical panel in the wall for further inspection and he only intends to glance up briefly, but when he catches her sizing herself up, his gaze lingers. “No, no… it, um, it’s fine. It looks very good, even. It’s the standard uniform for women on the crew, so I promise you won’t look at all out of place.”

                She continues to inspect herself for a few moments. Finally, though, she steps away from the mirror and strolls over to the Doctor. “And what exactly will I be doing as I’m looking not out of place?”

                “Oh, right, that. I figured you’d be in operations, hence the red uniform. Probably their engineering division. They have some computer jobs that are pretty similar to the work you’ve done as a temp, so you should be able to find a place to fit in.”

                “And what are you going to do?”

                He’s got his screwdriver zeroed in on some blinking wire, and he only barely has the presence of mind to shrug. “Work on the TARDIS, I suppose. I’ll probably just venture out to get food.”

                “Sure…” She hesitates. “But see, you and I both know that you have a tendency to get excited about things you’re unfamiliar with. I’m worried that you’re going to get a bit distracted.”

                Now the Doctor’s got his tongue poking out between his teeth as he squints at a set of controls. “Mhm.”

                Donna rolls her eyes and swats at his arm. “Doctor!” He jolts. “I know you’re curious about how everything works here, but please promise me we won’t stick around longer than we need to. You’ll get the TARDIS back into shape and then we can go?”

                For the first time since they landed on this spaceship, the Doctor’s thoughts don’t seem to be racing. He blinks down at her, and his eyes grow soft. “Yes. The TARDIS will be my first priority, I promise.”

                “Great. Now tell me everything I need to know if I want to fit in on this ship.”


	2. First Night Aboard the Enterprise

                It is only with a great deal of luck that the Doctor and Donna make their way to the mess hall unscathed. Donna had been very reluctant to join The Doctor as he ventured out into the rest of the Enterprise—she had a perfectly respectable stock of food in the TARDIS kitchen, after all. He only managed to convince her by pointing out that it would provide her with the greatest opportunity to integrate herself into the the crew.

                That said, the moment she finds herself amidst the group, she throws herself into befriending them. The Doctor mostly sits quietly as she chats up the people surrounding them; he finds that he enjoys watching Donna engage with them all. She’s capable of being so remarkably pleasant when she wants to be.

                Moments such as this remind him of why he brought her traveling with him in the first place.

                “What ship were you on before you came here?” one of the security crewmen asks eventually.

                Although the Doctor had been anticipating this question, he had held off on coming up with a definitive backstory. He wasn’t sure how precisely the universe that they were in actually corresponded with the television show with which he was familiar (scarily familiar, as Donna felt the need to point out).

                So Donna gives the man the answer that the Doctor suggested. “Oh, it’s rather hard to keep track—the Doctor and I have been in more places than I can keep track of. I feel like this is the first moment of rest we’ve had in ages.” After a moment’s consideration, she adds, “I’m enjoying settling in on the Enterprise, though.”

                Not a total lie. There’s something about being able to take a new space and make it home… Even if it’s just for a little while.

                “I don’t know how I haven’t seen you around since we last docked, though. I would have thought I’d notice you walking around.”

                The Doctor has to work very hard not to roll his eyes, but Donna smiles graciously. “Just been keeping a low profile, I suppose. I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of each other, though.”

                He smiles. “I hope so. I’m planning on doing some shopping with some other crewmen and two of the officers when we have shore leave in a few days, if perhaps you’d like to join us?”

                “Of course, that sounds lovely.”

                Donna continues to make small talk with the surrounding crewmen, but she and the Doctor retreat from the mess hall not long after. The elevator door has only just closed when he mutters, “Blimey, those blokes were friendly. Especially what’s-his-name… Tom? Teddy?”

                “Robert,” she supplies. Her gaze is fixed on her nails and her expression is indifferent. He always does this, always encourages her to make friends but then gets grumpy when she hits it off with a bloke.

                And then he gets even grumpier when she tries to tell him that it’s none of his business whether she’s talking to blokes. It’s all very frustrating.

                “You thinking of actually joining them on their shopping trip?” the Doctor asks carefully.

                “Probably will,” Donna says with a shrug. “You’re going to be rather busy pretending to fix the TARDIS while you run all sorts of tests on the Enterprise—” The Doctor splutters and tries to argue with her, but she talks over him as they leave the elevator and head toward their room. “—so it’ll be something for me to do. Maybe if I flirt with Robert enough, he’ll buy me a drink or two. I hope they’ve got good alcohol in this universe.”

                The Doctor heaves a sigh. “Don’t you think you could do better than getting a couple drinks off of Rodney?”

                She wishes, she _really_ wishes, he could stop being so childish about an inconsequential bloke in a parallel universe. “That’s why it’ll never go farther than drinks. From _Robert_ ,” she adds, not because she particularly cares but because for some reason, the Doctor does.

                Upon reaching their temporary room, the Doctor begins examining the TARDIS. He tries to push Donna to go off and entertain herself – “I’m sure you can find something more interesting to do.” – but she lingers and eventually, he allows himself to enjoy her company.

                “Can you explain to me how the TARDIS was able to cross over into this universe?” Donna asks him after a little while. “And don’t tell me it’s complicated, there must be a way that you can explain it simply.”

                His head pokes up from the grating long enough so that he can squint at her as he says, “Commentary on general human ignorance or your own intelligence?”

                “Which do you think?” The Doctor has berated her more times than she can count for underselling herself. Now she generally manages to avoid such casually self-deprecating marks.

                “Just checking,” he says with a soft smile. He ducks back down into the underbelly of the TARDIS. “In order for a piece of fiction – films, books, television, anything – to exist, there needs to be a universe where all of those characters exist and all of those events take place. It generally wouldn’t be noticeably different. Take those crime shows that you humans love so much.”

                “Oh, my mum adores those,” Donna agrees.

                “If we traveled to one of those universes, we might not even notice anything different right away. It’s even possible that we still exist. But here… so many things happened differently in this universe than in ours. Little things, maybe, but really big things too. Planets and stars forming in different places, different species evolving at different rates, peculiar technology developing… anything you can think of might have happened differently.”

                Donna hums low. “That’s so strange. I might not exist. You might not exist.”

                He chuckles from down below. “Possibly not. But that’s not even the strange bit.”

                She figured as much. The Doctor always does have a flair for the dramatic when it comes to revealing crucial information. “Go on, then.”

                “Well, the last time I ended up in a parallel universe, the TARDIS sort of… died.”

                “The TARDIS what now?”

                Before Donna has an opportunity to get stern with him, the Doctor jumps up out of the hatch and sits on the grating. Probably so that he can gauge her reaction and focus his explanation accordingly. “Not really died, I mean, she just ran out of power. But theoretically, that’s what should have happened when we arrived here. She lives off of our universe’s time energy. So if she’s still operational, she must be drawing from a remarkable power source.”

                “You think it’s coming from the Enterprise, don’t you? That’s why you keep trying to look at the circuitry: you want to figure out what’s got the TARDIS happy enough that it can keep going.”

                He nods, having just enough grace to look a bit bashful. “I do need to sort out the TARDIS too, honestly. She still very well could be sick. She’s also running calculations right now on precisely how far from our universe we’ve traveled so that we can figure out how to get home. Both of which _will_ take a few days.”

                Donna can’t help smirking. She finds that she’s not particularly surprised that he bluffed a little bit. “And in the meantime, I can get as much information about their systems for you as I can manage.”

                “I didn’t even…” The Doctor trails off when she rolls her eyes at him. “Am I really so predictable?”

                She shrugs. “I figured there must be a reason why you want me snooping around on their computers. Lucky for you, I have experience learning about entirely new systems on the fly.”

                “Lucky for me,” he agrees, grinning. “It won’t be too bad, right?”

                “No, I don’t think so.”

                The Doctor looks down, lightly tracing his fingers over the metal. “You know I’d want to hang around even longer if I weren’t worried about the long-term effects it might have on the TARDIS.”

                As if in response to this remark, the TARDIS groans, uncharacteristically loud. Donna directs a patient smile up at the ceiling. “I’m glad the two of us are in agreement, at least.”

                “Yet you mock me for talking to the TARDIS,” the Doctor muses. He jumps back down to continue his work, missing the first full-on grin that Donna has allowed herself to crack.

                For some time, the Doctor and Donna eagerly discuss other fictional universes that they’d be curious to explore. He identifies many works of fiction that hearken from other planets and other times and regales Donna with stories about the fantastical characters and situations that these stories contain.

                Regardless of her best efforts, she finds herself dozing eventually and when she doesn’t respond to one of his questions – he desperately needs to know her opinion on musical theater – he pops his head up again.

                “Oi, you’re not falling asleep, are you?”

                “Course not,” Donna mumbles. She lifts her head and opens her eyes wide as if to illustrate her point, but the long day of pretending to be in the right universe has gotten the best of her and she fails outrageously at suppressing a rather large yawn. “I’m just resting my eyes a little bit, you know.”

                He scowls at her and she scowls back. “You’re daft. Let’s get you settled in your new room, come on.”

                The Doctor guides his exhausted companion out of the TARDIS. She immediately drops down onto the bed and, against his better judgment, he tentatively asks, “Is there anything still missing that you’d like me to get from your room on the TARDIS?”

                She wants to tell him no. In honesty, she wants to express her disapproval that he offered to enter her bedroom in the first place—he’s always been forbidden from entering her room unless the door is open (and she never leaves her door open). But then she remembers her hair and toothbrushes, and she can’t help feeling rather stuck. “Yeah, actually, do you think you could just fetch my hairbrush from my bedside table? And my toothbrush from the cabinet in the loo.”

                While he’s gone, Donna calls up her gramps. Ever since they visited home, he’s instructed her to phone him any time she’s going to bed, not to worry when that ends up being for him. This time it’s three o’clock in the afternoon on a Saturday.

                There’s not been a single one of her stories that he hasn’t believed, but she suspects that he doesn’t quite believe this one. But he expresses his enthusiasm for her nonetheless. Before he hangs up, he adds, “Oh, and your mum made me promise to remind you to make sure that you’re eating enough fruit. And make sure your doctor is eating enough fruit while you’re at it, I suppose.”

                He says this as though aware that the Doctor chooses that moment to emerge from the TARDIS, Donna’s toiletries in hand. “Don’t worry, Gramps,” she says loudly. “I’ll make sure the Doctor eats plenty of fruit. I’ll stock the kitchen up with pears.”

                The Doctor scowls and she makes a dramatic, mildly unpleasant scowling face back, but at this sight, he only giggles quietly as he sits down on the bed beside her.

                “Very glad to hear it, love,” Wilf tells her fondly. “Now you better come home and visit soon, then you can tell me all about the Enterprise.”

                “I will. Soon, I promise, okay?”

                Less than a minute later, Donna and Wilf have said their goodbyes. She heaves a sigh and, with absolutely no hesitation, she leans her head on the Doctor’s shoulder. “I don’t think he believes that we’re here,” she tells him. “He believes I’m flying around the universe in a time travelling police box, but ending up on _Star Trek_ is where he draws the line. I wouldn’t have guessed.”

                He doesn’t reply except to chuckle lightly, after which point they sit in silence for a few moments that stretch before them like an eternity. Well, they stretch before Donna like an eternity. She’s well aware that to the Doctor, it probably feels like no time at all.

                And then he sets her things down in her lap and the moment is lost within a sea of countless other meaningless moments. “Goodnight, Donna.”

                Before she can realize precisely what’s happened, the Doctor has retreated into the TARDIS and closed the door. She is alone.


	3. Shore Leave

                Donna only makes about four wrong turns before she finally makes it to engineering after breakfast, but when she arrives, she is met by two blokes, one of whom is Robert, the man she’d chatted with so extensively the night before.

                The moment he catches sight of her, he greets her eagerly. “Donna! I was beginning to wonder whether you’d lied about where you worked to avoid me.”

                “What? Of course not. I didn’t expect to see you so soon, though.” She stills in front of him and smiles, turning her gaze to the other man. “And who’s your friend?”

                “This is Ensign Pavel Chekov. He’s an officer on the bridge.”

                “Ensign Chekov,” Donna repeats. The name is mildly familiar—she thinks the Doctor might have mentioned him when he was gushing about the officers on the ship. “It’s lovely to meet you.”

                He grins. “And you. But please, just call me Chekov. Everybody does.”

                “Alright. Chekov, then.” She looks between them curiously. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

                “Shore leave’s starting today. Apparently an emergency came up at a nearby station, so we’re docking a few days early. I thought you might still be interested in shopping with us.”

                Donna hesitates. She doesn’t mind spending time with the crew of the Enterprise, but she’d mostly agreed to the shore leave proposition because she assumed that by the time it came around, she and the Doctor would be long gone. She also thinks it would look rather conspicuous if she went out without any money.

                But her curiosity about the crew gets the better of her. “Sure, that would be lovely. How soon are we leaving?”

                They want to leave almost immediately, so she rushes back to her room to find the Doctor. He’s nosing around the electrical circuits in the wall of the Enterprise again, bounding between the open panel in the ship and the TARDIS console.

                “Multitasking, I see,” she remarks, hovering in the doorway of the TARDIS.

                “I can do two things at once…”

                His absent-minded assurance trails off, and Donna can’t help chuckling. “No, no, that doesn’t bother me, Doctor. I was just wondering whether I could bother your screwdriver for a few hours.”

                “What?” The Doctor looks up from the console, confused. “What do you need with my screwdriver?”

                “I’m going on shore leave with some of the crew, and I figured there’s probably a currency machine that I can use.”

                “A currency machine…” he echoes slowly before redirecting his gaze toward the console. “No, Donna, I’m sorry. If it were just for a few minutes, then that would be one thing, but I really need it. What are you leaving the ship for, anyway?”

                She shrugs. “Just for a bit of fun.” There’s a moment where she almost leaves him to his work, but then another thought occurs. “What if you came with us? You could always come back to the Enterprise if you get bored.”

                The Doctor seems genuinely startled by the suggestion. “What? But I’m—” He gestures between the console and the open doorway, the open panel behind Donna.

                “For a little while?” Donna adds gently.

                And so, with her prodding, Donna successfully gets the Doctor out of the TARDIS and they meet several other crewmen by the transporter room. She catches sight of Chekov and Robert and grabs the Doctor’s hand, pulling him across the hall. “Hope you don’t mind, I thought I’d bring my mate. Chekov, this is the Doctor.”

                “Pleased to meet you,” Chekov says, smiling eagerly and holding out his hand.

                The Doctor’s eyes widened upon learning the man’s name and he rushes to take Chekov’s hand, shaking it eagerly. “Chekov, is it? Lovely, absolutely lovely to meet you.”

                If Chekov is surprised by the Doctor’s excitement, it doesn’t show. He just smiles and nods. “We’re just waiting on Lieutenant Uhura, and then we’ll be ready to go.”

                “Lieutenant…” The Doctor trails off, then he glances over to Donna and grins, raising his eyebrows. “I’ve heard wonderful things about her.”

                Donna suppresses the desire to roll her eyes. He was so reluctant to leave the TARDIS for more than a few minutes, but he’s eager enough now that he knows he’ll have the opportunity to chat with some of his favorite characters from television.

                He falls over himself when getting introduced to Uhura, but she mostly seems amused by his energy. “Oh yes, the Doctor. You’re the one who got Dr. McCoy so flustered yesterday. Not that it takes much to do that,” she adds to Chekov, and the two share a light chuckle.

                “Yes, yes, that was me. Just a misunderstanding, though. We cleared it up in a flash.”

                After the TARDIS, Donna knows that nothing should surprise her, but she still finds herself in awe of the transporter on the Enterprise. She glances at the Doctor and sees that he shares her look of glee in the moments before they dematerialize.

                Just as Donna predicted, there is a currency machine on the station, but the five of them have to join in a queue along with the other crewmen.

                “Doctor?” She leans close to him, not wanting any of the other crewmen to hear her.

                “Hmm?”

                She gestures toward the queue. “How the hell can both of us get away with using the sonic in front of everyone?”

                He takes a brief look around before shrugging. “We won’t. I’ll do it, and then I’ll just give you money. It will be just fine.”

                “Oh. Well, alright. I suppose that should be fine.”

                The Doctor must note something in her tone because he squints at her. “Is something wrong? You’ve never objected to that arrangement before.”

                Now Donna casts her gaze across the rest of the crew. More than one person has already assumed that she and the Doctor are together, and if he withdraws money and immediately presents it to her, she’s not sure if anything she says will be enough to argue against such a supposition.

                But, she reasons, what should it matter, really? If they’re going to be off the Enterprise in a short number of days, what should it matter?

                “No, no, it’s alright.”

                Everyone who’s on shore leave wanders around the station in a disorganized fashion, but they essentially remain in a pack. Some crewmen return to the Enterprise fairly quickly, including – to the Doctor’s amusement, “Richard,” who seemed to lose interest in Donna almost as soon as he saw that she’d brought the Doctor with her – but the rest of them eventually make their way to the bar.

                 “Does everyone want a drink?” Uhura asks as they claim a table.

                When they all nod, Donna says, “I’ll help you get them.”

                They wait at the bar while the bartender prepares their drinks. Uhura leans against the counter and nods toward the table where the Doctor and Chekov are waiting. “So how long have you two been married?”

                “We’re not married.” It takes everything in her not to reveal just how exasperated she is. “Why is everyone so convinced that we’re married?”

                Uhura’s eyes widen in surprise. “Really? You seem so close, so Chekov and I just assumed…”

                Donna shakes her head. “I promise we’re not. I love him, just… as a mate. He and I make a good team.”

                “I get that sense,” Uhura agrees with a smile. “But can I ask you something?”

                “Go ahead.”

                The lieutenant actually hesitates for the briefest of moments. “You think you make a good team because you only love him as a friend, but have you ever wondered whether you only allow yourself to love him as a friend because you’re scared to ruin your team?”

                For lack of anything to say, Donna just squints at Uhura. “What?”

                Uhura shrugs. “Just consider it.”

                “Yeah, sure, alright.” She nods, feeling suddenly listless.

                Then a conversation between the bartender and a bloke at the bar draws their attention. “You’re a difficult man to reach, but I have something from the far reaches of the galaxy. Surely you want—”

                Both Donna and Uhura stifle gasps of delight when the man pulls a tiny ball of fur from his pocket. Uhura leans forward eagerly. “What is it? Is it alive? May I hold it?”

                Minutes later, Donna and Uhura return to the Doctor and Chekov with drinks in hand, but more importantly, they have each bought their own precious fur balls from the man at the bar, who introduced himself as Cyrano Jones.

                As soon as the Doctor catches sight of their new purchases, he jolts. “Donna, is that… a tribble?”

                “Yeah, I think that was what he called it. Why?”

                He looks over to the tribble in Uhura’s hand, and he suddenly gets that look on his face when he’s processing things a million times faster than Donna could ever fathom. “No reason,” he says at last. “I think I’m going to head back to the TAR—to the Enterprise. Would you mind if I brought it with me?”

                Donna agrees, if only because he’s got this desperate sort of look in his eyes that she’s long since learned not to say no to.

                “Something about that tribble got him excited,” Uhura muses once the Doctor has left.

                “Everything gets him excited,” Donna murmurs with a gentle smile, although she won’t be so amused if he doesn’t let her in on whatever got him so excited over the tribbles that she and Uhura just bought.

                Chekov gestures toward Uhura’s tribble. “May I hold it?”

                She nods, holding the creature out for Chekov to take. “It’s darling, isn’t it?”

                “I like it very much,” he agrees. “You don’t think Captain Kirk will mind that you bought it, do you?”

                “Why should he mind?” Donna asks. The tribble is cooing gently in Chekov’s hands; the sound is warm and reassuring. “It’s perfectly harmless.”


End file.
